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Heritage students pitch ice rink design

Heritage High School senior Alexa Balkema gives her “elevator pitch” for the hockey rink she and classmate Sarah Ervin designed. The pair 3D printed a model of the rink and built a to-scale diorama of where they think it should go on school grounds.

photos by david Gilbert

Heritage High School senior Sarah Ervin surveys her work on a proposed hockey rink she designed with classmate Alexa Balkema.

David Gilbert

Heritage High School seniors Sarah Ervin, left, and Alexa Balkema walk across the parking lot they’d like to see turned into a hockey rink.

David Gilbert

Balkema and Ervin’s initial computer-aided drafting design of the hockey rink they’d like to see built on Heritage High School grounds.

If all goes according to plan, Heritage High School seniors Alexa Balkema and Sarah Ervin can come to their high school reunions and take a spin on the synthetic ice skating rink they designed.

Balkema and Ervin designed the rink as part of an engineering technology class last fall, using a computer-aided drafting program and a 3D printer to make a mockup for a rink that would fit in a small, seldom-used parking lot behind the school’s tennis courts.

Though at 70 feet by 40 feet the rink would be too small to play regulation hockey games, it would be big enough to host youth leagues or smaller groups.

Because the surface would be synthetic, the rink wouldn’t require refrigeration.

The pair presented their plan to a Heritage hockey fundraiser in December, and have plans to bring it to the school board this spring.

Mike Broyles, the girls’ adviser for the Future Business Leaders of America club, said he thinks their project could take them to nationals.

“It’s cool to work on something that could become real,” Balkema said. “It’s like leaving a legacy.”

Two people were killed after a woman driving a stolen car crashed into their vehicle at the intersection of Santa Fe Drive and Mineral Avenue in Littleton in the early hours of Feb. 6, according to the Douglas County Sheriff's Office.